The Development and Affirmation of Macedonian National Thought from Kresna to Ilinden (1878-1903)
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The development of Macedonian national thought between the two most significant attempts to win a Macedonian state in a revolutionary manner (the Kresna Uprising, 1878-1879, and the Ilinden Uprising, 1903) was a time of consolidation of Macedonian national thought. This was a period when Macedonia was physically separated from its Slavic neighbours that had formerly lain within the borders of Turkey and when the groundwork of political and ideological movements was built in Macedonian society (within the land and among the already well-developed émigré circles), and also when the organized expression of national-political action by the Macedonian people reached its apogee.
This period can be divided into two stages with clearly defined characteristics: (1) years of a homogenization of integrative national consciousness and of the initial affirmation of national thought on the internal and external plane (1878-1893), and (2) a decade of affirmation of the political component of organized Macedonian consciousness as a dominant element with a definition of the initial practical implementation of the Macedonian national programme.
If we assume that the early 1870s were the key stage in the process of definition of the Macedonian national entity, and hence in the building of the national programme; if the year 1878 saw the affirmation of the revolutionary national liberation movement which, two years later, was to promote the first National Assembly of Macedonia, the Macedonian Provisional Government and the first Constitution of Macedonia; if in the late 1880s and early 1890s Macedonian national thought experienced its first public clashes on the road to affirmation on the Balkan and international European scene; if 1893 was the year of the secret foundation of the revolutionary liberation movement along horizontal and vertical lines, then the year 1903 certainly marked a historically crucial stage in Macedonian national and political constitution and affirmation: during the Ilinden Uprising, the broad layers of the people willingly accepted armed struggle as the only way to win national freedom and establish a state of their own (provisionally in the form of autonomy within the borders of Turkey). The struggle for Macedonian statehood, without any support and assistance from neighbouring countries or the European great powers (and in spite of all the obstacles on their part), had both theoretical foundations and practical results which considerably excited the international public. This marked the crossing of the crucial threshold in the process of Macedonian national development, which opened the path for Macedonian cultural and national affirmation. Yet it was also to engender an organized and combined obstruction by the interested neighbouring monarchies.
1. The early 1870s saw the start of an open struggle against the aspirations and actions of foreign propaganda in Macedonia, and this only reinforced the process of Macedonian national differentiation. While Greek national propaganda was already losing its formerly established position, Bulgarian propaganda (particularly after the foundation of the Bulgarian Exarchate) was severely intensified, having the official Turkish authorities on its side. By opening and controlling churches, schools and communities of its own, and especially through its propaganda with the help of the well-developed Bulgarian press in Constantinople as well as with the actions of the various official ‘societies’ and ‘church-school departments’, the Bulgarian Exarchate was virtually transformed into an official and legal Bulgarian ‘Ministry of Faith and Education’, not only in the territory of Bulgaria but also in all the areas of European Turkey inhabited by Orthodox Slavs.
The joining of this struggle for the control and distribution of spheres of interest in Macedonia by state-organized Serbian propaganda further complicated the process of affirmation of the Macedonian national entity. Rivalry between the different propaganda machines, however, to a large extent reoriented the struggle of Slavism against Hellenism and led to a more marked differentiation of Macedonian national interests.
The propaganda of the various religious missions (mainly Uniate and Protestant) became a means used not only by the great powers and neighbouring states, but also by the indigenous Macedonian movement.
In this spectrum, Romanian national propaganda in Macedonia was of limited extent and potential and did not essentially influence the development of Macedonian national affirmation.
The complicated situation was further aggravated by the notorious fact that Turkey, in accordance with Shariah law, did not recognize nationality (ethnicity) but only faith (religion). As a result, the church appeared as the basic factor in the affirmation of a particular nationality (ethnicity). Following the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate is was impossible to form another Slavic Orthodox church within the borders of Turkey, and the Macedonians remained without any real opportunity for official ethnic differentiation from their neighbours.
Yet the Macedonian ‘separatist’ movement grew stronger and stronger. Petko Račev Slavejkov noticed this even before the Church and People’s Synod of the Bulgarian Exarchate (1871) [1] and especially while taking part in the suppression of the Uniate movement (1873/74) when he wrote about it in his letters to the Exarch from Salonika. [2] Bulgarian teachers in Macedonia also noticed it; one of these was Nikola Gančev Eničerev, [3] a Bulgarian teacher in Prilep. He writes thata citizen of Struga, Strezov, “came to Prilep several times and had arguments with the Bulgarian teachers there and with the more intelligent young people in connection with the origin of the Macedonians. He allowed the possibility that the Macedonians could be anything else but not Bulgarians.” [4]
A Bulgarian teacher in Salonika, Stefan Salgandžiev, wrote the same, [5] and the same was confirmed by a Bulgarian activist in Constantinople, P.P. Karapetrov. [6]
The Austrian consul, Lippich, [7] was also very much aware of this process. Accordingly, national awakening in Macedonia was already becoming the object of European diplomacy as well, and not only of the Balkan pretenders.
2. The Razlovci Uprising (1876) strengthened the independent development of Macedonian national consciousness even further, and the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878) opened more realistic prospects for the fulfillment of the Macedonian programme. The Treaty of San Stefano caused mixed feelings among the people: on the one hand, it brought disappointment as the Macedonian people was pushed into the envisioned Bulgarian state in the Balkans under a Bulgarian name, but on the other, the Macedonians nourished hopes that the Russian tsar would create a dual and perhaps federal state — in the spirit of the decisions of the Constantinople Conference (1877) — where Macedonia would finally become “a free kingdom” (or republic), outside Turkey, but under the protectorship of Russia. A similar variant was indeed discussed in the higher circles in St Petersburg, as well as in Vienna and Budapest. [8] The Congress of Berlin, however, established a vassal Bulgarian Principality and an autonomous East Rumelia, while Macedonia was returned to the Sultan without a clearly defined future. This was to lead to the start of the greatest insurrection to date, the Kresna (Macedonian) Uprising (1878-1879), which put forward the first constitutional project for the long-awaited Macedonian free state (December 1878). [9]
The Insurgent (Uprising) Committee codified its position not only as regards the struggle and liberation, but also towards Macedonia’s neighbours (at that moment and in the future), towards the churches and towards the great powers as well, putting emphasis on the right of the Macedonian people alone and the Insurgent Committee to fight and control their struggle, but also to make use of their freedom.
In this way the Macedonian national-cultural programme was now complete and included the revolutionary-liberation component. The Macedonians emphasized their state-constitutional legitimacy and created a Macedonian Army as the principal factor of their liberation struggle. At the same time, however, a new factor, known as Vrhovism, emerged in the Macedonian movement; it was an external (foreign) factor serving hegemonist aspirations in the settling of the “Macedonian question”. [10]
Subseljuent development proceeded in a convulsive manner, primarily owing to constant and organized interference by Macedonia’s neighbours. The main obstructive factor became the free neighbouring monarchies of Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece. Yet the tendency towards an independent, internal and self-governing settlement of the question of Macedonia’s liberation continued to be expressed uninterruptedly.
The Kresna Uprising failed because it ran contrary to the interests not only of Macedonia’s small neighbours, but also of the major European powers, above all those of Russia, which carefully protected the integrity of Turkey as in their own interest and also the status of the Berlin decisions on the Balkans. In this situation, Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin became an international guarantee of the justness of the struggle of the Macedonian people for effectuation, which was to continue up to the year 1912. Only after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire did the great powers lose their acquired right to interfere in the internal matters of this part of the Balkans. Yet the interference continued even after the First World War, although in other forms and using new methods.
3. Controlled from outside and limited by the international accords, the actions of the Macedonian insurrectionists in the Kumanovo, Kriva Palanka and Kratovo regions were not more successful either. While as far as the Kresna Uprising was concerned, the newly-established Bulgarian state invested all its efforts in obstructing the independent development of the movement, in this case a similar role was played by the Principality of Serbia, which persistently strove, if not to expand its territory to the south, then at least, to secure good prospects for such an action. [11]
This rivalry had disastrous effects on all attempts at unification of the Macedonian forces into a joint front for liberating the land or at least for gaining autonomy. The picture will be complete if we also take into account the actions of the Greek government for securing its own sphere of influence and a stronger position in the partition of the territory of European Turkey. The attempts of the founders of the Military Committee for the Liberation of Christians in the Ottoman Empire, and those of Leonidas Voulgaris’s Slavo-Macedonian Committee in Athens, at establishing links with Serbia and the Macedonian leaders there as well as with the Macedonian champions in Bulgaria, i.e. East Rumelia (and also with all Macedonians from around the land), are the best illustration of this. [12]
All this impelled the Macedonians to work secretly vis-a-vis the propaganda of the three neighbouring nations. For example, in April 1880 there was an important meeting between Leonidas Voulgaris (originating from the Pijanec region), his old fellow fighters from the Slavo-Macedonian Committee in Athens and the prominent leader in the Kresna Uprising, the priest Kostadin Bufski, in Gremen-Teće, southern Macedonia (Ostrovo district). The two commanders and their detachments agreed on the basic concepts of the struggle for liberation: the establishment of an independent state of Macedonia, or autonomy within Turkey, provided that spiritual unity of the Macedonian people was guaranteed, the actions of the neighbouring national propaganda machines prevented and the support of the great powers secured. In order to achieve these objectives they decided to convene a National Assembly of Macedonia with democratically-elected delegates from all the “religious-national” entities and ethnic groups, who were to decide the future of the Macedonian state.
On May 21, 1880, with its Act No. 3 issued at Gremen-Teće, the Provisional Government of Macedonia informed the Russian Consul in Salonika that on the same day a decision had been passed by the Provisional Assembly of Macedonia (enclosed in the letter) with a request that it be forwarded to the Russian government. The letter was signed by the president of the Provisional Government of Macedonia, Vasil Simu, its members Anastas Dimitrievič and Ali Efendi, and by its secretary, Nikola Trajkov, and validated with the Government’s seal. [13]
The decision of the Provisional National Assembly itself is validated by four different seals[14] and signed by the heads of the appropriate departments. [15]
The document states that the assembly of “provisional representatives from different eparchies, provisionally elected by the population of Macedonia”, examined the political situation and “the means for fulfilling the wishes of the Macedonian nationalities” and that “by general consent of the members of the Macedonian National Assembly” a resolution was passed “on behalf of the Macedonian people-population” with the following demands:
(a) To impart the justified demands of the Macedonian people-population to the Sublime Porte through the mediation of the governor-general in Macedonia, so that the Porte may speed up the implementation of Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin and convene legal representatives from Macedonia for the examining and amending of the Organic Constitution.
(b) To send this decision to the representatives of the European powers, signatories to the Treaty of Berlin, with a request that they forward it to their respective governments and demand that they intervene with the Porte for an unimpeded implementation and fulfillment of the decisions of the aforementioned treaty related to Macedonia.
(c) To send special persons to do the same in Constantinople.
(d) For the implementation of the decisions passed today we have elected a Provisional Macedonian Government consisting of the following: Vasil Simu, Anastas Dimitrievič and Ali Efendi (Albanian).
(e) The Provisional Macedonian Government is entrusted with carrying out the following:
a. To secure in a fully secret manner assistance from the European Powers for the unimpeded implementation of the provisions of the Treaty of Berlin relating to Macedonia.
b. To appoint military commanders for the fulfillment of the wishes of the Macedonian population, in the case of failure, by arms.
c. If the Provisional Government finds that the Sublime Porte is conducting a policy of delaying the settlement, then it would demand, with a decisive proclamation, armed help from the Macedonian people-population, calling them to arms so that they themselves can take up the struggle for survival.
d. With a like proclamation the Provisional Government will ask for help from the governments interested in the rebirth of old Macedonia, and also help from all freedom-loving people.
e. The Provisional Government is entrusted to carry out the provisional organi- zation of military and civil authorities, to find the means for the fulfillment of the aforesaid decisions, the symbol of the Macedonian flag, seals and for everything which is related to the establishment of a provisional administration. [16]
The great powers, however, were not interested in hearing the voice of Macedonia, nor were Macedonia’s small neighbours ready to forego their own aspirations.
4. In this same period, a draft Law for the Vilayets of Turkey in Europe, prepared by the Sublime Porte in the spirit of the Treaty of Berlin, was circulated for discussion. On April 5, 1880, representatives from the Bitola, Prilep, Ohrid, Veles and Lerin church-school communities, joined by the communities of Resen and Gevgelija, gathered in Bitola. They examined the draft reforms and sent a detailed request to the European Commission for Reforms in Constantinople, specifying their remarks and proposals on all issues in 24 items. [17]
At the same time Macedonian émigrés in Bulgaria continued their revolutionary activity, preparing themselves for new armed actions. The former volunteersin the Russo-Turkish War and the activists of the Kresna Uprising had been scattered all over the Bulgarian state in order to prevent their joint organized action. But as early as the end of 1879, in the distant town of Ruse (on the Danube), a Macedonian league for the liberation of Macedonia was set up. Following the intervention of the Bulgarian authorities, it was renamed as the ‘Bulgarian-Macedonian League’. The League’s secretary, using the pseudonym of Mavro, called on the Macedonian émigrés to support the action financially and announced that ten Macedonian commanders were ready to depart for Macedonia with their detachments. [18]
In the spring of 1880 one detachment was defeated in a battle with the Turkish authorities, and memoirs were found among the killed addressed to the great powers, demanding the autonomy of Macedonia.
The largest number of refugees from Macedonia were concentrated in western Bulgaria. In order to organize the struggle and return to their homeland, they associated in various societies. Thus, for instance, in Dupnica, a Macedonian Charitable Society was established which, in July 1880 (during the passage of the Bulgarian prince through the town), presented a petition to Alexander of Battenberg, demanding that the Bulgarian authorities did not scatter them in distant places throughout Bulgaria, as they had no intentions of staying in that country. A similar petition was submitted by a delegation of refugees from the Seres sanjak. [19]
After a longer period of internal upheaval, volunteers from the Russo-Turkish War took over the leadership of the Ruse League and resolutely demanded the implementation of Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin and the establishment of an autonomous Macedonian state through the mediation of the European Commission for Reforms. Yet this was precisely the reason why, after the intervention of the Bulgarian authorities, the League ceased to exist. [20]
On the other hand, there were about 1,800 Macedonian fighters in Sofia, among them some fifteen commanders from the Russo-Turkish War and the Kresna Uprising. Together with the numerous Macedonian intelligentsia there, they founded a new ‘Bulgarian-Macedonian League’. After establishing contact with the leader of the suppressed uprising, on May 2, 1879, on Mount Maleš, the League issued a proclamation calling for a new uprising in Macedonia. [21]
The question of the name of the League, however, became crucial for these fighters. They wanted it to be called simply ‘Macedonian League’, while the intellectuals supported the name ‘Bulgarian-Macedonian League’. After three founding assemblies, a compromise was reached that the organization be called ‘Macedonian-Bulgarian League’. Yet the commanders continued to insist on their preferred designation, as the basic slogan of the Macedonian League was ‘Freedom for Macedonia or Death’. [22]
At the same time, the League took on the task of reworking the ‘Organic Constitution for the Future State Organization of Macedonia’, whose basic version had already been accepted by the Ruse League. Yet long disputes ensued on this issue, too. The representatives of the Macedonian intelligentsia in Bulgaria insisted on concentrating the entire political power in their own hands, leaving the military command to the commanders. They demanded that, in conformity with this division of powers, the Provisional Government of Macedonia be formed of civilians alone, under the presidency of Vasil Dijamandiev. But the commanders rejected the demand, and it was decided through compromise that political and military powers should not be divided until the liberation of the land. Vasil Dijamandiev was accepted as the president of the League, while the General Staff was to act as the Provisional Administration of Macedonia. Work on the Constitution concerning the state organization of Macedonia started, the task being assigned to the Dijamandiev brothers. [23]
The Constitution drawn up for the Future State Organization of Macedonia, [24] in addition to its important preamble, consists of 103 articles divided into 15 chapters. It legitimizes a State Council and a Supreme Administrative authority with 12 ministries with portfolios, an Administrative-Territorial authority and a Legislative authority, specifying, as its highest legislative authority, the National Assembly consisting of 80 deputies from among all the nationalities living in Macedonia.
It is interesting that the constitutional codification pays strict attention to the equality of all the other nationalities in Macedonia. Furthermore, full freedom of religion and cults is envisaged, recognizing the jurisdiction of all churches: the Oecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople, the Exarchate, the Roman Catholic Church (together with the Uniate church), the Islamic Müftülük, the Lutheran Protestant religious corporations and the Jewish Religious Community. The Constitution also specifies the question of finance in the Macedonian state as well as questions of the economy and agrarian relations, crafts and trade, and also precisely defines the international relations of Macedonia “in conformity with Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin, based on the Cretan Constitution of 1868”. The Final Clauses emphasize that “the Constitution of the Autonomous State of Macedonia will enter into force after the Sublime Porte approves it, and the representatives of the European Commission for Conducting Reforms in Turkey in Europe approve it in principle”. But if they fail to approve it, the Constitution “will be submitted to the National Assembly of Macedonia for adoption and will be put into practice through military force by the Macedonian liberation army”.
The Provisional Administration of Macedonia (i.e. the General Staff of the military of the Macedonian League) is bound to send the Constitution “to the Sublime Porte, to the representatives of the European Great Powers and to the neighbouring Balkan principalities, and obtain their consent for its putting into practice”. It also envisages that a large number of copies of the Constitution will be made in order to send them to “the entire population of Macedonia for their information and possible comments”. It is particularly important that the last article (103) provides that the Constitution “should also be sent to the Provisional Government of Macedonia at Gremen-Teće for its consent and approval”, which is a confirmation of the status that this body enjoyed at that stage of organization of the Macedonian state.
In accordance with this Constitution, the Military Staff of the Macedonian League for the Liberation of Macedonia prepared special “Military instructions for the organization of the Macedonian Army in the Autonomous State of Macedonia”, which consisted of two parts. The first part was prepared in the town of Ruse and bears the date April 12, 1880; it was entitled “Military instruction for the organization of the Macedonian Army in the Autonomous State of Macedonia” [25] and defined the organization of the Macedonian Army following the liberation of the land and the constitution of the state. The second part bears the title “Provisional military instructions for action of the Macedonian Army”, [26] passed by the Military Staff of the Macedonian Army on May 6, 1880, specifying no place of issue.
It is of particular significance that the second act, whose preamble expressly states that “the European Commission for conducting reforms in the vilayets of Turkey in Europe and for the establishment of a single Macedonian vilayet has so far paid no attention, at its sessions, to the memoirs sent to it for the appropriate implementation of Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin and granting political autonomy to Macedonia by preparing an organic constitution for Macedonia”. The Turkish representative in the Commission, however, proposed a draft for an organic constitution which envisaged “only administrative decentralization in the Macedonian vilayets” to preserve the integrity of the Turkish state. As a result, the Military Staff of the Macedonian League stated:
Interpreting the aspirations of the Macedonian people to liberation, the Macedonian League is convinced of the untenability of the signed Peace Treaty of Berlin, and, in addition to the political action for the implementation of Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin in the European regions of Turkey, is determined to continue its armed struggle for the liberation of Macedonia and the establishment of a Macedonian state, as it considers the administrative autonomy of Macedonia a stupid cliché of European and Turkish diplomacy. Enslaved Macedonia naturally wants the same rights as free Bulgaria. The Macedonians do not want to bow their heads in slavery and therefore have taken up arms. The movement of insurgent detachments in Macedonia, however, has lately appeared to be more of an armed demonstration than a major insurrectionist movement. In order to unite all the detachments in Macedonia into a single whole and towards a single goal — the establishment of a free Macedonian state — the Military Staff of the Macedonian League for the Liberation of Macedonia has undertaken the preparation of this Provisional Military Instructions for Action of the Macedonian Army. [27]
The Macedonian League issued a number of other documents of exceptional significance. In addition to the memoir to the members of the European Commission in Constantinople (Ruse, April 14, 1880), [28] on June 23, 1880, the Provisional Administration of Macedonia sent from Mount Pirin Planina another memoir to the ministers of the great powers — Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary and Italy — as well as to the Commission of the European powers for reforms in European Turkey, in Constantinople, [29] appending the Constitution of the State Organization of Macedonia to the document. It offered a detailed explanation of all the efforts of the Macedonian people for a just implementation of Article 23 of the Treaty of Berlin and expressed a strong protest against the draft constitution already prepared by the Porte for reforms in the vilayets and against the make-up of vilayet commissions.
This document also ljuoted a large number of requests and complaints by the Macedonian population from all over Macedonia addressed to the European Commission and to the Porte demanding the delineation of the borderline between Macedonian and other vilayets in European Turkey and the establishment of a single Salonika vilayet for the whole of Macedonia. Yet there was no reply. On April 17, 1880, the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs invited the signatories to the Treaty of Berlin to examine and adopt the newly-prepared regulations, and the Salonika vali had already started implementing these regulations — which had not yet been approved — in his vilayet, even before the European Commission could have examined them. To check the arbitrariness of the Turkish authorities, prior to the convocation of the European Commission in Constantinople, 102 representatives of the Macedonian population submitted a memoir to the European powers, demanding once again a single Macedonian vilayet and the preparation of an organic constitution for Macedonia similar to the Cretan one. Yet this memoir, too, remained without an answer.
The Macedonians who lived in Constantinople immediately submitted a request with 200 signatures, stating the same demands, and “the Macedonian representative Karandžulov, together with 12 delegates” was received by the British representative in the European Commission, Lord Fitzmaurice, who promised that their request would be forwarded to the Commission. But there was still no answer. Furthermore, the European Commission accepted the draft constitution of the vilayets with an explanation that the Organic Constitution of Crete could be applied to Macedonia, as “the population that lives there is ethnically diverse”. [30]
In early June the General Staff invited Vasil Dijamandiev, as the president, to come from Plovdiv to Mount Pirin Planina, where on June 29, 1880, it issued an important document, “Manifesto of the General Staff of the Macedonian Army”, [31] for the preparation of a general insurrection. This manifesto also reached the leader of Macedonian detachments in south-western Macedonia, Leonidas Voulgaris, who in mid-July, “together with Vasil Simon, a certain Tiko and two other unknown people”, as representatives of the “Provisional Government of Macedonia — Equality”, met Dijamandiev, bringing their own documents, and reached an agreement on joint insurgent action. They agreed that the Provisional Government of Macedonia should be the public proponent of the uprising, and that the Macedonian League and the General Staff should take the military command. They also agreed that the former should use the protection of the Greek government, and the latter that of the Bulgarian government, but only until the liberation of the land and the establishment of the Macedonian state. Dijamandiev acquainted the delegates coming from the south with the prepared Constitution and Military Instructions and then, at the proposal of the delegation of the Provisional Government, another article was added — on the rights and duties of the nationalities in Macedonia. [32]
Following the talks in Plovdiv, the delegation of the Provisional Government went to Pirin Planina and met the chief commander of the General Staff, Iljo Maleševski, while Vasil Dijamandiev informed the Bulgarian Minister of the Interior of all these activities. [33]
In Voulgaris’s diary, in the section referring to the talks with the representatives of the Macedonian League, we can read, among other things, that “the old ajduk Iljo Maleševski, little educated and almost illiterate, has a much broader understanding of the future of Macedonia than Vasil Dijamandiev, an educated and learned person”. The following section of Voulgaris’s notes on the talks on Pirin Planina is very interesting:
Commander Iljo was delighted with our presence and spared no effort to arrange for us to come to this village house on Mount Pirin. He accepted the agreement with Dijamandiev, but there was a conspicuous frown on his face concerning the patronage of Bulgaria and Greece. What would happen if we were to add the patronage of Serbia; he said that we were going back to the old ways. Leave all those who stir our waters aside, he said. Who will believe us that we are fighting for the freedom of Macedonia when these patrons want to dismember it? We fully agreed with him and decided to work in secret from both the Bulgarians and the Greeks. [34]
These were indeed the most critical moments in the activity of the Provisional Macedonian Government and the Macedonian League. Detachments were constantly sent to Macedonia and they were active over almost all the territory of this Turkish province. Major armed actions were taken by the police and military authorities against the detachments, [35] and as the movement did not enjoy the support of any state in the Balkans or in Europe, it remained of a fairly limited character. It could even be said that everyone was against it; even the diplomatic representatives of the great powers acted as informants for the Turkish authorities in the liljuidation of the armed movement. [36]
Yet it is very important that on April 11/23, 1881, a letter (in French) was sent from Kjustendil to the Russian diplomatic representative in Constantinople, General Nikolay P. Ignatiev, [37] in which the Provisional Government of Macedonia asked him to forward the enclosed “Manifesto of the Provisional Government of Macedonia” (also in French) to the Russian government. It is interesting and significant that this letter, bearing the same four seals affixed a year ago, was signed by the president of the Provisional Government, Vasilos Simos, by the four members of the Government (the first signature is illegible, the second in the Cyrillic script is that of Petro Jovanov, the third is that of Kostas, although the surname is not clearly written in the Greek alphabet, and the fourth signature is that of Hriste Gjorgov), while Nikolaos Trajkov once again signed the letter as secretary. These were actually all the members of the Government, whose function and fate has still been insufficiently studied.
The Manifesto of the Provisional Government of Macedonia[38] contains the signatures of its president and secretary, validated by two seals, and it, too, was adopted in Kjustendil on April 11/23, although the document is actually a certified copy made on Mount Dospat on April 18/30, 1881. The Manifesto, among other things, declares the following:
True Macedonians, faithful children to your fatherland!
Will you allow our dear country to be ruined? Look how, in this slavery, she is covered with wounds inflicted by the surrounding peoples. Look at her and see the heavy chains imposed upon her by the Sultan. Being in such a helpless position and all in tears, our dear Macedonia, our dear fatherland, is calling upon you: You who are my faithful children, you who are my descendants, after Aristotle and Alexander the Great, you in whose veins Macedonian blood flows, do not let me die, but help me. What a sad sight it would be for you, true Macedonians, if you became witnesses of my burial. No, no, here are my dreadful bleeding wounds, here are my heavy chains: break them, heal my wounds, do everything in your power that the words “A single and united Macedonia” will be written on the banner I will raise! Having done this courageously, banish from your land these murderers who carry the flag of discord in their hands and inculcate antagonistic ideas, dividing you, my children, into innumerable nationalities; then, having gathered under the banner of Macedonia as your only national distinction, raise that glorious banner high and make it ready so that you can unanimously write on it: Long live the Macedonian people, long live Macedonia!
We do not know what the effect of these appeals and proclamations was. There is no doubt that they were accepted by the people of Macedonia, but it is also likely that they worried those who aspired to this Turkish province. Hence they took every possible measure and used every possible means to neutralize not only the effect of such appeals and proclamations but also the revolutionary movement in Macedonia itself. They soon managed to break the unity within the leadership of this movement. As part of these actions, Voulgaris was denounced and arrested in Salonika on his return following the meetings with the representatives of the Macedonian League. Only an energetic intervention by Russian diplomacy saved him from jail. He withdrew to Athens, not abandoning, however, the ideas he had proclaimed earlier. At the same time Vasil Dijamandiev was placed under investigation and was conducted by the police from Plovdiv to Sofia, and the Bulgarian government took all the necessary measures to close its border with Turkey to Macedonian armed detachments, a measure also taken by the Greek government. The split within the movement is also confirmed in report No. 211 of June 14, 1881, by the head of the Russian Consulate General in Macedonia (Salonika) to the Russian ambassador in Constantinople, in which he reminded the ambassador of his report sent a year earlier “on the emergence here of what is known as the Provisional Macedonian Government”, and continued:
Since then no one had heard anything about that Government. It seemed to have sunk in eternity and my recollections of it remained in my mind as an unsuccessful attempt of naive political agitators.
But on June 12 this year I unexpectedly received a letter from a certain Baron Gundlas, in which he proposed to give me certain information about the Provisional Macedonian Government.
Succumbing to my inclination to curiosity, I invited this without doubt unreliable person, not so much hoping to receive precise information, but rather as an opportunity to meet the new type of political spy.
A very decent young man presented before me, evidently flustered because of his intent.
He began with the recommendations of his personality, which was allegedly known to Count Gatsfelyd and Radolinsky in Constantinople, to our military attaché in Plovdiv, to Captain Eku and Adjutant General G. Glinka, whose grandson he was. When I saw that he hesitated to state the reason which had made him turn to me and knowing from experience not to trust in appearances only, I hurried to warn him that if he had come to demand material assistance, then he did not need tell me his secrets and that I, in my turn, would keep his call a secret.
In reply, Baron Gundlas told me that he needed no money, but that he only wanted revenge and to unmask the intentions of his enemy Leonidas Voulgaris, whose secretary he had been and who had allegedly expelled him from his post. He then told me that the representatives of the provisional Macedonian Government, Messrs Simos, Voulgaris, Tiko, etc., after sending the circular to Salonika, had gone to Plovdiv, from where they conducted their illegal activities.
Their entire activity over the past year consisted of forming as many outlaw gangs as possible in Macedonia. With this purpose in mind, they sent agents throughout the land who spread among the population, in every possible way, a feeling of discontent with the existing order and proposed that they overthrow it by force. The gangs were formed one after another and were armed with the support of the Provisional Government, which allegedly had and still has a large arms depot in Varna.
Having no opportunity of corroborating the truth of what has been said to me, I feel obliged to confirm to Your Excellency the fact of a real growth of outlawry, which is constantly augmented from among the rural population and armed in ways which are unknown to anyone.
As far as the final objective of all the endeavours of the Provisional Government is concerned, according to Mr Gundlas, it consisted of the simultaneous movement of all outlaw gangs, of fires, explosions in state powder magazines, a general revolutionary movement, of expelling the Turkish authorities, etc., etc. It is planned that all this be carried out in the course of this summer, and the Provisional Government has already moved its residence here, to Ostrovo, close to Voden.
Simos, Taki and others, together with their adherents, have already passed through Salonika, but they are still waiting for Leonidas Voulgaris, because he is late due to his arrest by the Turkish authorities, from whom he has nevertheless managed to escape.
The signal for general action will be an explosion in the Salonika powder tower, and several sinister persons have already arrived for this purpose. Baron Gundlas also told me a number of other details, but I will not occupy the attention of Your Excellency any more, as they are not helpful in the explanation of matters at all.
In order to give a better idea of the position of the Russian Consul General towards these activities and understand his role in the obstruction of this action, we shall ljuote the end of his report:
Not fully trusting the whole story, just in case I nevertheless warned the local authorities, giving some comments about the possible development of matters, and they have strengthened police control almost everywhere. I told them that I had received this information from an anonymous letter and that in all probability it was a sheer mystification.
At the same time, herewith enclosing Baron Gundlas’s original letter, I have the honour of courteously asking Your Excellency to order me to request the opinion of the German Embassy concerning the personality of the baron, and if it is positive, to let me send a secret agent to the vicinity of Voden to keep an eye on the wrongdoers who, by their criminal activities, will, in all likelihood, bring disaster on the Macedonian Christian population which is already suffering badly. [39]
That there was indeed a highly developed insurgent movement in Macedonia in 1880 and 1881 is confirmed by several sources. As early as August 18, 1880, the Salonika Russian Consul Nikolay Skryabin, in his report No. 697, informed Evgeny Petrovich Novikov that “the leaders of the Greek outlaw detachments, Katarahja and Kalogiros, who have so far hidden out in the mountains of Olympus, have now abandoned Thessaly and moved to Macedonia via Gevgelija. They have chosen Tikveš and Veles as their new residences and have started holding negotiations with the local Bulgarian outlaws for the alliance of Bulgarian and Greek forces. It is still unknown whether the negotiations have been successful, but the appearance of the new uninvited guests has already been marked by the killing of five Turks on the outskirts of Veles, and the local population is now in terrible fear.” The consul continued by asking himself: “How can this unexpected Bulgaro-Greek association be explained — I do not know. Some evil tongues have called it a Bulgarian movement and casually mentioned the memorandum printed in the newspaper Neologos which contains a project for the partition of Macedonia. Others say that the Provisional Macedonian Government is again stepping up its activity, concerning which I had the honour of informing Your Excellency in my report No. 659.” [40]
On August 27, 1880, Skryabin notified Novikov that what he had written of the “outlaws” Katarahja and Kalogiros was true, but that this had not happened “these days”, but that “Katarahja left the surroundings of Veles even before August 15 and moved to the Bitola district. Here, in the village of Malovište, he marked his presence by major outlawry and then hurried on to Mariovo, which is situated in the vicinity of Prilep. And Kalogiros remained in place to carry out his actions between Veles and Tikveš. Their relations with the local Bulgarian outlaws brought about the persecution of the unfortunate peaceful population by the Turkish authorities who have already detained 75 innocent Bulgarians in Veles.” [41]
On August 27, Skryabin reported on a sensitive inclination towards “Graeco-Bulgarian rapprochement” in Macedonia, even though he had never heard of such a readiness, as he says, “from the Bulgarian side”, as there was great fear of the Greeks. [42]
The Russian consul regularly referred to the Macedonians as “Bulgarians” and to the revolutionaries as “outlaws” or “gangs”. It is interesting that he found a well-developed revolutionary movement in almost all the regions of Macedonia, as a result of which major pogroms were carried out among the population. Thus, for example in his report No. 714 of September 2, 1880, Skryabin wrote:
The attempt of Greek outlaws at uniting with Bulgarian ones, the killing of five Turks on the outskirts of Veles (report No. 697 of August 18), and also the refusal by the Bulgarians to help the Albanian League (report No. 708 of August 27) — all this has put the Bulgarian inhabitants of Veles into an extremely difficult situation. Aware of their powerlessness, the Turkish authorities, whose suspicion exceeds the limits of any logic, instead of coldly investigating matters, have been acting under the influence of slanders and capturing innocent Bulgarians solely on account of information by their enemies. Over 150 people have been detain up to the present day. All of them are in jail with no hope that they will ever be released, as the Turkish authorities have given their fate to the justice of the judges, and these are filled with the hatred of one person, a certain Hamid-Pasha, who had been a friend of three of the aforementioned five Turks who were killed[43]
The reports from Macedonia constantly emphasized a movement of detachments and the suffering of the population from the Turks. On September 9, Skryabin warned about a large-scale movement of “outlaw detachments” in Macedonia, [44] while in his extensive report No. 770 of October 11, 1880, he described the activities of the detachments of Ajada, Zarkada, Katarahja, Panajot Kalogiros and other commanders whose number increased daily and warned of the “danger” of their association, because the demoralized, underpaid and hungry Turkish troops would in that case be unable to deal with them. [45]
On October 27 he wrote about new acts of “violence” carried out by the detachments of Kamaka, Zarkada and Kalogiros, [46] and on November 8 about a large number of interned men, women and children who were close to the Macedonian “outlaws” Dimo, Petruš, Pano Samardžiev and others. He gave details of these commanders: Dimo is described as coming from the village of Vetersko; two years ago he had gone to Bulgaria together with his wife; Petruš came from the village of Rudnik and was in Kjustendil at the time; Pano Samardžiev was from the village of Podles, in the Tikveš region, who “after the Easter holidays left for Bulgaria”, while Janko from the village of Guzemelci went to Serbia “as early as 12 years ago” and, as of the rest, nobody has heard anything of him. [47] The families and relatives of all these migrant workers were interned or arrested, even though they had no links with nor activities in the revolutionary movement. This was not the case in the Veles and Tikveš regions alone. Skryabin’s report from Salonika of November 16, 1880, spoke of new internment of the Macedonian population from Kočani to Skopje, etc. [48]
Assistance and protection were sought not only from the foreign consuls in Macedonia, but also from the neighbouring states, and even from the Bulgarian Exarchate. [49] For instance, the cable to the Bulgarian Prime Minister sent by the families interned in Salonika, among other things, stated: “The local authorities, considering as outlaws/revolutionaries our relatives who have long ago moved to Bulgaria and Serbia and are there engaged in trade, have detained us for no real reason, and amidst this winter weather too, and have sent us under guard from Veles to Salonika and Kessendra together with our families, all in all 163 persons.” [50]
Such and similar news filled the newspapers of the time. Even Vasil Dijamandiev himself declared that the moment had come for insurgent action and called the Macedonians to organized resistance against the Turks. [51]
Towards the end of 1880, in Ruse, more concrete actions were taken by the ‘Bulgarian-Macedonian League’, with Dijamandiev as its president, and Georgij A. Georgov, principal of the Agricultural School in this town, as its secretary. [52]
The joint struggle of the nationalities living in Macedonia against the centuries-old enemy caused anxiety among the neighbouring aspirants and they took concrete steps to destroy it. Much later, recalling this period, the editor of the semi-official mouthpiece Svoboda warned with unconcealed gall: “We can solemnly conclude that if there were any Macedonian leagues, detachments, societies, newspapers, etc. in Bulgaria, each one, pursuing its own interests, inflicted a great evil rather than good upon their brothers in Macedonia.” [53] But the insurgent detachment movement in Macedonia was not fully paralysed. In June 1881 many arrests were made in connection with what was to become known as the ‘Ohrid Conspiracy’, [54] and the creation of new rebel detachments was expected in the following year. The Macedonian League and the Provisional Government of Macedonia were unable to continue their activities, but Macedonian national consciousness strengthened the awareness among the people that a struggle for freedom and a state of their own was inevitable.
A large number of societies were founded in Macedonia and among the émigrés, and as early as 1885 a secret revolutionary Macedonian committee was set up in Sofia, whose core consisted of “some twenty young people from Macedonia”. Yet the Bulgarian authorities smashed this organization as well, and its more prominent activists moved to Belgrade, where Serbian propaganda welcomed them and gradually succeeded in using their activity for the goals of Serbian greater-state policy. [55]
We have examined the revolutionary component of the Macedonian movement in greater detail because Macedonian national and political consciousness was expressed most strongly in the period immediately following the Congress of Berlin and because the facts presented above are a clear illustration of the very clearly defined Macedonian national-liberation concepts in the popular movement. [56]
5. Developments in Macedonia were accompanied by the simultaneous demonstration of Macedonian national consciousness and actions for cultural and national affirmation.
Thus, for instance, as early as the time of the Kresna Uprising, Commander Gjorgija M. Pulevski published his revolutionary poem ‘Samovila Makedonska’ (Macedonian Sprite); somewhat later he printed two booklets under the common title Makedonska pesnarka (Macedonian Songbook, 1879), [57] and as the question of the Macedonian literary language once again became crucial in the Macedonian liberation struggle, he also published the first part of his extensive grammar Slognica rečovska (Reka Wordbook, 1880). [58]
To affirm Macedonian historical consciousness and support the national consolidation, Pulevski wrote his comprehensive Slavjansko-maćedonska opšta istorija (Slavonic-Macedonian General History), [59] which, though remaining in manuscript, marked the beginning of modern Macedonian national historiography. Even though he was not adequately prepared for the task, he also ‘compiled’ a number of other textbooks for Macedonian schools in the vernacular, but of these only two dictionaries were published in Belgrade. [60]
The extensive collections of folklore, on which he persistently worked, gathering materials from Macedonian émigrés in Sofia, also remained in manuscripts. [61] In order to make a more organized contribution — in an institutional manner — to cultural and national affirmation, Pulevski founded a Slavonic-Macedonian literary society in Sofia (1888), [62] but the authorities soon suppressed it, too.
This was already a time of intensive and state-organized action by the neighbouring national propaganda machines in Macedonia and at the same time of a strongly pronounced resistance on the part of the Macedonian people. The Macedonians saw the need not only to know their historical roots, but also to seek means for the further development of the Macedonian nation and culture. The struggle to preserve the autonomy of the church-school communities became particularly intense in the 1880s. Various societies were founded in towns all over Macedonia which according to their official, and especially unofficial, programmes were of predominantly Macedonian character. They included: the St Clement Cultural-Educational Society in Ohrid (1872-1890 and later), [63] the Razvitok (Development) Educational Society in Skopje (1877-1885), the Bratstvo (Brotherhood) Society in Bitola (1880-1885) and the Christian Charitable Society in Salonika (1882-1883).
Attempts were made to open a printing shop and print textbooks for the Macedonian schools as well as a number of special editions. [64]
This was a trend which was strongly reflected in the ideas and activity of Anatolija Zografski, Partenija Zografski, Teodosija Sinaitski, Kirijak Držilovič, Georgi Dinkata, Marko Cepenkov and others. The power of the printed word was clear to everybody, but the opportunities for its free dissemination were becoming more and more limited over the years.
After the decision of the Bulgarian Exarchate, in particular, to take all the church-school communities in Macedonia into its own hands, there was a spontaneous and powerful agitation among the teachers against interference from outside. Once again large teachers’ meetings were organized in Prilep (1891) [65] and Voden (1892), which adopted important resolutions on the protection of the schools and teachers there, and also firmly raised the question of church-school autonomy with the Archbishopric of Ohrid as the national church and Macedonian as the standard.
At about the same time (1891-1892), the Skopje Exarchate Metropolitan Teodosija (Theodosius) Gologanov[66] openly rejected the Bulgarian Exarchate, and voicing popular demands, tried to secure, first through the Protestants and later with the mediation of the Uniates, the restoration of the Archbishopric of Ohrid, which would have the right, as a national autocephalous church, to guide spiritual and educational matters, and as a result, national and political life in the land as well. Yet the powerful propaganda machinery of its neighbours and the total corruptibility of the Turkish authorities again prevented the normal development of the Macedonian nation.
6. As the Greater-Serbian propaganda was the weakest in Macedonia and had almost no support among the people, prominent Serbian ideologists of the greater-state idea tried to use the legitimate aspirations of the Macedonians for the affirmation of their mother tongue in schools and literature, and prepared and published special “Macedonian” textbooks for “the popular schools” in Macedonia (several large editions of a primer, a reader and the Golub Calendar with texts in the “Macedonian” language). It was actually some kind of Macedonian-Serbian amalgam, and the printing and free distribution within the borders of the Sultan’s Empire was given approval by the relevant Turkish authorities. Despite its being awkwardly assembled, this language was exuberantly accepted in Macedonian circles as it nonetheless differed from both Bulgarian and Serbian. At that time Stojan Novaković proposed to the Serbian government that a full translation of the Holy Bible into Macedonian be made, but it was immediately assessed that this would play a crucial role in the affirmation of the Macedonian language and Macedonian national individuality, and the proposal was rejected. Serbian propaganda soon saw that by pursuing such a policy it only further stirred up Macedonian national feelings and strengthened Macedonian national consciousness. As a result, it discarded that approach of penetrating into Macedonia and started, by using the Serbian language and a clearly defined Serbian national programme, to set up Serbophile oases inside European Turkey. [67]
Side by side with these actions, in order to undermine the foundations of Bulgarian propaganda, Serbian propaganda used the freljuent rebellions of Macedonian pupils in the Exarchal schools in Macedonia, and by generous promises attracted a large number of young intellectuals, inviting them to study in Serbia. But when these Macedonian pupils and students saw that neither their language nor nationality were respected in Belgrade, they started a major rebellion there as well. After long negotiations, many of them accepted the promises of the Bulgarian diplomatic agency in the Serbian capital and demonstratively left Belgrade, going to Sofia (1890).
Yet even with their first steps on Bulgarian soil, the young Macedonians realized that the agreement reached was once again not observed, and there was a strong reaction: some returned to Macedonia, some went back to Belgrade, and others remained in Bulgaria, aiming to develop and strengthen, through organized forms, the Macedonian national idea and liberation action. [68]
7. Macedonian national thought continued to develop in the circles of Macedonian émigrés in Sofia. The newspapers Makedonskij Glas (1885-1887) and Makedonija (1888-1893), and later Glas Makedonski and others, prepared a firm ground for further action. In fact, various Macedonian associations started developing immediately after the suppression of the Macedonian League. For instance, the Bulgarian-Macedonian Charitable Society was founded in 1882 in Sofia, [69] and the next year saw the establishment of the Macedonian Society, a modification of the former, [70] as well as the Society for Helping Impoverished Macedonians. [71]
The Alexander of Macedon Bulgarian-Macedonian Charitable Society[72] was founded towards the end of 1884 in Ruse, and the secessionist Iskra Bulgarian-Macedonian Revolutionary Committee was set up soon afterwards. [73]
The Macedonian Society for Collecting Assistance for the Suffering Macedonians was founded in early 1885 in Plovdiv, but shortly thereafter a Bulgarian counterpart was formed: Central Committee Fighting for the Liberation of Macedonia from Turkish Slavery. [74]
Thus Macedonian societies emerged in various Bulgarian and East-Rumelian centres, even professional ones, such as the Macedonian Guild Society in Plovdiv. [75] Sofia, however, was the centre of the Macedonian émigré community. As a result, immediately after the “Macedonian meetings”, the Makedonski Glas Society was founded in late 1884, which started printing its own mouthpiece of the same name. [76]
Macedonian manifestations of considerable interest ensued on the unification of East Rumelia and Bulgaria, the Serbo-Bulgarian War (1885), the dethronement and abdication of the Bulgarian Prince Alexander of Battenberg (1886) and especially after the coming of the notorious Macedonophobe, Stefan Stambolov, to the head of the Bulgarian government. After some stormy meetings and conferences of the Macedonians in the Bulgarian capital, a new organization, bearing the name Makedonsko čitalište (Macedonian Reading Club), was established in 1889. [77]
The end of the same year saw the foundation in Sofia of a Macedonian Savings Bank whose official name was Zaemo-spestovna kasa na Makedoncite (Loan-Savings Bank of the Macedonians). [78]
However, all these and other Macedonian associations and institutions were viewed with suspicion by Stambolov and he brutally suppressed all of them. Pulevski’s aforementioned Slavonic-Macedonian Literary Society was formed at about the same time, but it, too, had to cease its activity soon. This was supervened by the journeys of Macedonian pupils and students via Belgrade to Sofia. The Macedonian question had already entered upon a new stage of development. The polemic started over Petar Draganov’s articles and The Ethnographic Map of Slavonic Nationalities of the St Petersburg Slavonic Charitable Society. Karl Hron published his book The Nationality of the Macedonian Slavs, and the first doctoral dissertation on the Macedonian language, by Leonhard Mazing, was defended and later published in two volumes in the Russian capital. New attempts were made at reaching a Serbo-Greek agreement on the division of Macedonia into spheres of influence, and Sofia succeeded in sending its own, already appointed, bishops to Macedonia.
Among the Macedonians, the generation of Delčev and Misirkov emerged on the scene. Revolutionary action had already been oriented against the activities of foreign propaganda in Macedonia. The danger of Macedonia’s dismemberment hung in the air. The end of 1890 saw the foundation, in Dame Gruev’s and Dimitar Mirčev’s flat in Sofia, of a secret ‘private’ society, composed mainly of defectors from Belgrade. [79]
But just when this association had prepared a ‘Constitution’ for itself, there occurred the murder of the Bulgarian Minister Belčev (March 1891) and this event was used to arrest the society’s chief initiators, after which they were expelled (or escaped) to Macedonia. One of the results of these painful experiences of the Macedonian intelligentsia in emigration was the establishment of the Young Macedonian Literary Society in Sofia (1891) which, from January the following year, began printing its mouthpiece Loza, after which the whole movement was called ‘Lozars’. [80]
Even though the journal was published only in a slightly Macedonianized variant of the Bulgarian language, but in phonetic (‘Macedonian’) orthography, it heralded an ideology which was not unknown to Bulgarian politics and propaganda, resulting in the strongest reaction in the Bulgarian public up to that time against “Macedonian national separatism”. After its fourth issue, Loza was banned and the principal members and leaders of the Society were arrested, persecuted, interned or mobilized in the Bulgarian Army (despite being Turkish citizens), while some of them managed to flee to Macedonia, where they started the secret organization of the Macedonian liberation cause, laying the foundations of the Secret Macedonian-Adrianople (or Macedonian-Adrianopolitan) Revolutionary Organization (TMORO). This organization was to prepare and carry out the most glorious and yet tragic popular achievement in more recent Macedonian history — the Ilinden Uprising. Precisely at the time when the core of this organization was being shaped in Salonika (1893), [81] the Macedonian Socialist Group was set up in Sofia, [82] the Vardar Macedonian Student Society was founded in Belgrade, [83] and the National Committee for the Autonomy of Macedonia and Albania, [84] which had previously begun the publication of its newspaper Albano-Macedonia in Bucharest, started its activities in London. [85]
There were also new currents in the émigré circles. In February 1894 a new Macedonian society, called Tatkovina (Fatherland), [86] was founded in Sofia, and in May of the same year a renewed Young Macedonian Society (no longer ‘Literary’) appeared and tried to continue the publication of the journal Loza (in the standard Bulgarian orthography and language); yet only two more issues were printed. [87] Vojdan Černodrinski’s Macedonian Accord (Makedonski zgovor) started its remarkably significant theatrical and literary activity under the auspices of this Society. [88]
Following the resignation of the Bulgarian Prime Minister Stefan Stambolov and his liquidation shortly thereafter, the Society set up a large number of regional branches throughout Bulgaria. Soon, however, an initiative was taken for the merging of the Young Macedonian Society and the Brotherly Alliance, an organization consisting of pro-Bulgarian Macedonian émigrés in Sofia. On December 27, 1894, the Constitution of the Macedonian Committee was finally adopted and its management elected, headed by Trajko Kitančev. The polemic between the Society’s mouthpiece, Glas Makedonski, and the mouthpiece of the Brotherly Alliance, however, continued in yet harsher and harsher tones.
On March 19, 1895, the foundations were laid for what was to become the Supreme Macedonian Committee in Sofia. At this First Macedonian Congress discussions concentrated on one crucial question: should they seek autonomy for Macedonia or its unification with Bulgaria? The majority voted in favour of autonomy. [89]
Although the organization continued to call itself simply the Macedonian Committee, it soon became ‘Supreme’ (Vrhoven), an event which marked the beginning of the history of what is known as ‘Vrhovism’ in the Macedonian liberation cause. As this committee gradually turned into an unofficial instrument of the Bulgarian court, an ‘uprising’ was improvised that same year (1895) in eastern Macedonia and large waves of emigration were provoked, aimed at demonstrating to the world the ‘Bulgarian character’ of the Macedonian people. Yet this could not prevent the growth of the national idea of the Macedonians of freedom and an independent state.
8. In the meantime the international public was already acquainted with the essential points of the ‘Macedonian question’. The truth about the Macedonian people, their history, ethnography, folklore, language and culture continued to spread all over the world. Prominent European journalists, writers and Slavic scholars published major books and articles on the ethnic individuality of the Macedonians. For example, Petar Draganov, [90] a Bulgarian from Bessarabia and a distinguished Russian Slavic scholar, who studied Macedonian matters on the spot as the Exarchate teacher in Salonika, started publishing, in 1887, a series of scholarly papers in St Petersburg and Warsaw on the language, ethnography, folklore and history of Macedonia. The year 1894 saw the printing of the first part of Draganov’s three-volume ethnographic, folklore and philological collection containing the texts of Macedonian folk songs together with ample commentaries, and also with an extremely important introduction which offered a faithful picture of the state of Macedonian national consciousness and culture at that time. This was the first collection of Macedonian folklore to be presented and at the same time analysed from a Macedonian national point of view. [91]
At approximately the same time the Austrian journalist Karl Hron published a series of articles and polemics in daily newspapers on the nationality (ethnicity) of the Macedonians, and in 1890 his book, The Nationality of the Macedonian Slavs, [92] stirred up the ‘ethnographic dispute’ of the Balkan aspirants even further.
In that same year, the Estonian linguist Leonhard Mazing defended, in the Russian capital, the first doctoral dissertation dealing with the Macedonian language, and in 1890 and 1891 he printed it in the form of two serious scholarly publications (in German) on the Macedonian accent and the Macedonian language in the Slavic world. [93]
His teacher and colleague, the Polish linguist and university professor in Russia, Jan Baudouin de Courtenay, [94] made a distinction, in his lectures, between the Macedonian and Bulgarian languages, publishing a number of contributions in this spirit.
At the same time, in the reprinted Ethnographic Map of Slavonic Nationalities for the 1890 Calendar of the St Petersburg Slavonic Charitable Society, the Macedonian people was shown, for the first time, in a different colour, as an individual people in the Slavic world. This was in fact the first official recognition of the Macedonian national (ethnic) identity — although only at the Slavic level. [95]
Scholarly debates on this question were further encouraged by the printing of the first edition of the collection of folk songs and customs by Ivan Yastrebov, (1886) [96] which, with the support of Serbia, also appeared in a second edition (with additions) in St Petersburg (1889). All this raised the ‘Macedonian question’ onto the international scene and it became an object of general interest for scholarship, and also for politics and propaganda.
Macedonians themselves were prompt to react. As early as 1890, in Sofia, Georgi Balasčev, a member of the journal Loza, printed the first book in his native tongue, [97] heralding the ‘new movement’ in Macedonian history. It was at that moment that the ‘secret’ student circle (‘society’) was established in the Bulgarian capital, which, in spite of persecution, was to become the core of the foundation of the Young Macedonian Literary Society in Sofia (1891-1892), famed for its mouthpiece Loza. The reactions of the semi-official newspaper Svoboda only served to help the clearer definition of the aims of the Macedonian movement. [98]
When the renewed Young Macedonian Society was joined by Macedonian Accord, an association of the young Macedonian intellectuals headed by Vojdan Černodrinski, [99] the Macedonian language emerged on the theatrical stage through plays written mostly by the leader of the Accord. This was a new impulse to the creation of a literature in the native tongue and a fresh support in the affirmation of Macedonian liberation thought.
Here we must also add the appearance of a whole series of collections of Macedonian folklore, such as those by Kuzman Šapkarev, [100] Vasil Ikonomov[101] and Naum Tahov, [102] and especially the folklore and ethnographic materials which started filling the pages of the distinguished Sbornik za narodni umotvorenija, nauka i knižnina (1889), where the accounts and texts by Marko Cepenkov[103] occupied a prominent place, contributing significantly to the affirmation of the Macedonian language in a written form and arousing interest in Macedonian culture and the Macedonian past.
Hence it was not surprising that ‘Macedonian speech-forms’ was introduced as a subject in the St Petersburg Faculty of History and Philology in the academic year 1900/1901, taught by Professor Petr A. Lavrov. In 1900 the young Slavic scholar Krste Misirkov (who had still not completed his studies) wrote the first study in his native tongue, [104] which his teacher, Lavrov, proposed that it should be printed and published by the Russian Academy of Sciences. [105]
This was not only the beginning of the new century but also of a new stage in Macedonian cultural and national history. It was not by chance that in 1900 Boris Sarafov’s Supreme Macedonian Committee in Sofia commissioned and printed the play Prilep Saints by Anton Strašimirov[106] - based on material by Marko Cepenkov, who had offered it (for a modest remuneration) to the editorial board of the Committee’s mouthpiece Reformi[107] — written in a macedonianized variant (with Gjorče Petrov’s help). [108]
Thanks to the great interest in this Macedonian play among the Macedonian émigrés, all 3,000 printed copies were sold out within a month. [109] For this reason, on December 16, 1900, the Supreme Macedonian Committee supported (with 100 lev) the printing of Vojdan Černodrinski’s revolutionary play Makedonska krvava svadba (Macedonian Blood Wedding), [110] which was to become the most famous play in the history of Macedonian literature and drama, and continues to be performed in Macedonian theatres up to the present day. The combination of all this reflected the establishment not only of Macedonian scholarly thought but also of modern Macedonian literature and a Macedonian national theatre, whose foremost aim was to support the Macedonian liberation cause.
9. The organization and swift development of the Macedonian revolutionary liberation movement attracted the attention not only of Balkan politics and diplomacy, but also of the European political and diplomatic institutions. Speculations began concerning an imminent uprising. The affirmation of the national entity of the Macedonians became the imperative of the day.
As early as 1901, Macedonian émigrés in Belgrade started gathering on a national basis, and in the summer of the following year a special Macedonian Club with a Reading Room was founded, which immediately began publishing its mouthpiece (in Serbian and French) Balkanski Glasnik (Balkan Herald). [111]
The pages of this newspaper brought the first more detailed formulation of the Macedonian national liberation programme of the ‘new movement’, and Macedonian was proclaimed the literary language of the Macedonians (using phonetic orthography). However, when the prepared memorandum was supposed to be submitted to the signatory powers of the Treaty of Berlin, there was a great uproar among the Serbian public and the Club was closed, the newspaper banned, and the chief organizers and its editors, Stefan Jakimov Dedov and Dijamandija Trpkov Mišajkov, had to leave Serbia.
Through the mediation of the Russian diplomatic representative in Belgrade, Dedov and Mišajkov arrived in St Petersburg and there, together with people who shared the same ideas, such as Krste Misirkov, Dimitrija Čupovski, Gavril Konstantinovič, Milan Stoilov, Risto Rusulenčič and certain other Macedonian students and émigrés, on October 28, 1902, they officially founded the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society[112] which was to play the role of a Macedonian cultural centre for a considerable period. In the application to the Council of the St Petersburg Slavonic Charitable Society (SPSCS), the nineteen signatories (headed by Misirkov) emphasized “the necessity for an exchange of ideas among ourselves, so that we can become acquainted with our fatherland, its present, past and future through joint efforts”, so that everyone could see “the damage of being divided into various groups” and avoid “the sad results of that division and have an opportunity of uniting ourselves on the basis of the unity of our fatherland, our same origin and future, and also on the basis of joint research into our fatherland from historical, ethnographic, folklore and linguistic points of view”. They united into a single society and applied for permission to hold their meetings on the premises of SPSCS “on the same basis as such meetings of the Czech, Bulgarian and Serbian young people studying in St Petersburg are held”. [113]
On November 12, 1902, Stefan J. Dedov and Dijamandija T. Mišajkov, on behalf of the Society, submitted to the SPSCS Council and also to the Russian government, a Memorandum on the Macedonian Question, which was undoubtedly the fullest exposition of the Macedonian national liberation programme. [114] The document demanded the recognition of the Macedonians “as a distinct people with a distinct literary language which, together with Turkish, will become the official language in the three vilayets of Macedonia”. It also demanded “the recognition of its independent church”, a governor-general “of the majority nationality in the three vilayets”, and a “regional elective popular assembly” with an “organic constitution of Macedonia”, guaranteed by the great powers. This was in fact the minimal programme at that historical moment, but, as the memorandum stated, “such a free Macedonia in its political, national and religious aspects will aim to attract the neighbouring states to it in a federation” so that it can become the “Piedmont for the unification of Balkan Slavdom and Orthodoxy”.
The SPSCS Council supported the programme[115] and thus the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society gained official recognition with opportunities for the development of national and cultural activities on the premises of Slavjanskaja Beseda in the Russian capital, on equal terms with the other similar recognized societies of Slavic peoples. Although only at the Slavic level, this was an extremely important recognition of the national entity of the Macedonians, which met with varied reactions in the world, and particularly in the Balkans and among the Slavs.
At the Society’s second session (December 29, 1902) [116] special gratitude was expressed to the Council of the SPSCS and letters were sent to the other Slavonic societies in St Petersburg (Bulgarian, Serbian and Czech) notifying them of the foundation of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society; the “borders of Macedonia” were defined, and an important decision was passed on the collection of “characteristic Macedonian words” which the Society’s secretary would write down “in a special book with pages divided into four sections: Macedonian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Russian”, in order to demonstrate to the Russians that the Macedonian language was distinct and different from the rest of the Slavonic languages and thus capable of independent literary development.
In spite of all the obstacles, intrigues and intimidation on the part of the interested aspirants to Macedonia, the Society held its sessions regularly, and in December 1903, after the suppression of the Ilinden Uprising, when the people most straightforwardly expressed their determination to win national freedom and a state of their own, the Society adopted a ‘Constitution’ which was submitted for approval to the SPSCS Council on December 20, 1903. [117]
The first president of the Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society was Dijamandija T. Mišajkov, but in early 1903 the post was given to Dimitrija D. Čupovski, who retained it to the end of the existence of this national association and institution — until the October Revolution (1917).
The Society achieved highly significant results in the implementation of the Macedonian national programme. For instance, it was within this Society that the first book in modern Macedonian was written and, by its decision, published as a practical application of Article 12 of the Constitution (Za makedonckite raboti, by Krste P. Misirkov). [118] It was here, too, that the elementary textbooks in Macedonian were prepared for the envisaged Macedonian schools in Macedonia, including one primer, which was sent to be printed in New York. [119]
In December 1903, during the printing of his book in Sofia, Misirkov founded a similar Macedonian Scholarly and Literary Society in the Bulgarian capital. [120]
With the purpose of preparing the ground for a similar association among the Macedonian émigré community in Belgrade, he went to the Serbian capital. There he managed to deliver a single but memorable lecture in the hall of the Higher School on the contemporary situation and the necessary and possible solution of the Macedonian national question, which caused a public reaction in the Belgrade press, [121] involving behind-the-scenes intrigues about the author and his published work. [122] As a matter of fact, he was able to feel all that for himself in his numerous contacts with prominent Serbian scholars and social, political and public figures. [123]
All this was synchronized with the performances of plays in the Macedonian language by Černodrinski’s Macedonian Theatre Group in Belgrade and Serbia, [124] and with the visit of the Sloboda (Freedom) Theatre Group which also gave performances in Macedonian. [125] After that a tour of America was planned for the Macedonian expatriates there. [126]
This was a time when the Macedonian language and Macedonian literature emerged on the scene ljuite normally, when the public started speaking of a ‘new’ South-Slavonic literature, [127] and when the selections of Slavonic poetry allotted a special place to Macedonian poetry. [128]
In general, a large number of theatrical and other performances in the native tongue were prepared within the émigré community (not only in Sofia but also in all other centres of Macedonian émigrés in Bulgaria). This was strongly reflected in Macedonia itself, [129] and important works of poetry, [130] prose[131] and drama[132] in Macedonian were printed.
The role of the periodicals was not peripheral in this situation. The newspaper Balkan deserves special mention; it was published (now in Sofia) by Stefan Jakimov Dedov, as a kind of continuation of the Belgrade Balkanski Glasnik and an unofficial mouthpiece of the St Petersburg Society. [133] At the same time Dedov’s friend and fellow fighter, Dijamandija T. Mišajkov, went to Bitola to test the ground for education in Macedonian, which was expected following the insurgent action. [134] In fact, 34 villages in Macedonia demanded this in writing, and the Society sought to satisfy their demands. [135]
The year 1903 demonstrated the greatest achievement of the Macedonian national liberation idea and was a crucial stage in its national and political consolidation. The Macedonian masses unreservedly and enthusiastically accepted armed struggle as the only means of gaining national freedom, though perhaps in the form of a limited autonomy for a certain period. The struggle for Macedonian statehood already had theoretical premises and had shown practical results, and had, moreover, greatly excited the international public. [136]
But all this frightened and upset Macedonia’s neighbours, and they hurried to prepare the ground for its partition. Thus, for example, under the disguise of Serbo-Bulgarian student agreements and cultural events, in the background, secret treaties and conventions were signed for the conljuest of Macedonia, still a Turkish province at that time. [137]
In addition, they took all measures possible to paralyse and disorient the Macedonian liberation struggle. Armed detachments of the neighbouring monarchies entered Macedonia; this was the start of what is known as the ‘detachment actions’, whose only aim was to undermine the independence of the Macedonian national liberation movement. [138]
At this historical point, the Macedonian national idea was the greatest obstacle to the achievement of the aspirants’ plans. This explains why the struggle against this idea was extremely well-organized and coordinated. The Macedonian people found themselves in a limbo of external factors, and even the international programme of reforms in European Turkey remained without real prospects of being implemented. [139]
The Young Turks only confirmed the impossibility. Obviously, the wars over Macedonia’s partition had been carefully prepared. A new period in Macedonian history ensued.
- ↑ [P.R. Slaveikov], ,,Makedonskijat Vapros“, Makedonija, oe, 3, 18.I.1871, 2.
- ↑ Cočo Biljarski – Ilija Paskov, ,,Pismata na Petko Račev Slavejkov po unijata v Makedonija prez 1874 g.“, Vekove, Hoe III, 1, Sofija, 1989, 68-75.
- ↑ N.G. Eničerevь, ,,G. Šapkarevь za Prilep i Ohrid“, Bьlgarski progledь, III, 7-8, Sofija, 1897, 239, zab. 1.
- ↑ Ibid., 244, zab. 1.
- ↑ St.K. Salgandžievь, Lični djala i spomeni po vьzraždaneto na solunskite i serski Bьlgari ili 12-godišna žestoka narodna borba sь grьckata propaganda, Plovdivь, 1906,35-46.
- ↑ P.P. Karapetrovь, Sbirka otь statii, Sredec, 1898, 91, zab. 68.
- ↑ D-r P. Ni kovь, ,,Avstrijskite konsuli vь Turcija za bьlgarite vь Makedonija“, Makedonski pregledь, I, 5-6, Sofija, 1925, 114.
- ↑ D-r Blaže Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i makedonskata nacija, I, Skopje, 1983, 378-293.
- ↑ Pravilata-Ustavot na Makedonskiot vost anički komitet vo Kresnenskoto vostanie, Skopje, 1980.
- ↑ D-r Blaže Ristovski, op. cit., 386-387.
- ↑ J. Haxi Vasiljević, ,,Ustanak Sr ba u Kumanovskoj i Palanačkoj kazi 1878 god.“, Brastvo, HI, Beograd, 1906, 150-204; D-r LJubiša Doklestić, Srpsko-makedonskite odnosi vo XIX-ot vek do 1897 godina, Skopje, 1973, 144-157; Kliment Dzambazovski, ,,Odborot za Stara Srbija i Makedonija i makedonskoto prašanje od 1877-1881 g.“, in: Makedonija vo Istočnata kriza 1875-1881, MANU, Skopje, 1978, 341-344.
- ↑ I v.B. Šumkovь, Patriotičeski i nasьrdčitelni razkazi Avtobiografijata na Ivanь B. Šumkovь, Sofija, 1907, 154-165; Tane Peevь, ,,Bьlgarska legija vь Gьrcija prezь 1877 g. (Izvadki izь moite spomeni )“, Makedonski pregledь, III, 4, 1927, 30-44; Risto Poplazarov, Osloboditelnite vooruženi borbi na makedonskiot narod vo periodot 1850-1878, I NI, Skopje, 1978, 242-247.
- ↑ AVP RI, Moskva, f. Pos-st vo v Konstantinopole, 1880, d. 2276, l. 208. The Russian translation (l. 203) mentions neither the reference number 44, nor the word Equality which is to be found in the seal of the Provisional Government of Macedonia. The letter is hand-written in Greek (in ink) on a sheet of paper with a printed letterhead (also in Greek). The signatures of Vasilos Simos, Anastasos Dimitrievič and secretary Nikolaos Trajkos are in Greek, and that of Ali Efendi in Arabic. In the translation, the president is rendered as Vasilij Simu, while the secretary’s signature is not mentioned at all.
- ↑ The protocolar decision of the Provisional National Assembly is also hand-written in Greek on four pages of ordinary paper. On page 1, to the left of the title, there is a seal reading Administration organized for the liberation of various tribes in Macedonia, “Sacred Struggle”, and to the right there is a seal reading Macedonia, Candia, Epirus, Thessaly. The same numbers, 3 and 44, appear there, but there is also the signature of the sender: the secretary, Nikola Trajkov. The last page contains two more seals, Head Office of the Macedonian Administration and Command of the Military Forces of Macedonia, with the appropriate signatures of their heads.
- ↑ The signatures (in Greek) are illegible.
- ↑ AVP RI, f. Pos-stvo v Konstantinopole, 1880, op. 517/2, d. 2276, l l. 209-219 s ob [overleaf].
- ↑ Zornica, oe, 21, Carigradь, 20.oe.1880; Makedonija, BAN, Sofija, 1978, 365-367. The same document (in a slightly modified version, mentioning Prilep instead of Priština, was published in Makedonskata liga ¼, 347-349.
- ↑ Slavjaninь, II, 19, Rusčukь, 18.H.1880, 148-149.
- ↑ Makedonskata liga ¼, 117-129.
- ↑ Ibid., 125-127. For more details concerning the League see: †Kiril Patriarh Bьlgarski, Bьlgarskata ekzarhija v Odrinsko i Makedonija sled Osvoboditelnata vojna (1877-1878), I, 1, Sofija, 1970, 460; Konstantin Pandev, Nacionalno-osvoboditelnoto dviženie v Makedonija i Odrinsko 1878-1903, Sofija, 1979, 40-41; Dojno Dojnov, Komitetite,,Edinstvo“. Roljata i prinosьt im za Sьedinenieto 1885, Sofija, 1985, 288-291.
- ↑ >†Bьlgarski Patriarh Kiril, Sьprotivata srestu u Berlinskija dogovor. Kresnenskoto vьstanie, Sofija, 1955, 235-236, dok. 115. There are certain omissions at places in the text which might explain the essence of the document. In the lithographed copies of the Appeal, the Macedonian Insurgent Committee proclaims: “Macedonians, “Our mother Macedonia is moaning and crying bitterly under the Turkish fire and yataghan; our suffering and bleeding parents, sons and brothers are calling us to arms against our torturers and tyrants of five centuries, and our molested mothers, wives and sisters, with bitter tears in their eyes, are groaning under the filthy and inhuman Turkish despotism around our devastated homes, waiting to hear their voice. “Macedonian and Bulgarian heroes! Our glorious lion is roaring in our Macedonian forests and valleys, mountains and deserts, calling all of us to arms. “Where are you, hasten, let us gather with arms in our hands to liberate the innocent victims of this filthy and disgraceful molestation. Bear in mind that our fathers and grandfathers fought and shed their blood for Greek and Serbian freedom, think now and recall the earlier years and you will see that they did not spare their blood for the freedom of all. With hope in God and in the justice of the Treaty of San Stefano, let us show that we are all true descendants of our fathers and grandfathers and worthy members of our generation. “Macedonians! Now is the time to convince our enlightened traitors that, even now, after being enslaved for five centuries, Macedonia has given birth to and has hero sons!” As in Gjorgija M. Pulevski’s songbooks, here too, Macedonians called upon the preliminary San Stefano peace treaty, as an act sponsored by Russia, in the hope that this might be a way of freeing themselves from Turkish domination, within the boundaries of a possible dual monarchy, Bulgaria-Macedonia. This was obviously not in line with the concepts the Provisional Government of Macedonia, but the document was written at a time when this government had not yet been formed and when the League was still a ‘Bulgarian-Macedonian League’.
- ↑ Makedonskata liga ¼, 127-129
- ↑ Ibid., 129-130.
- ↑ Ibid., 237-261
- ↑ Ibid., 262-291. Dojno Dojnov (op. cit., 289), however, confirms the accounts of Kiril (op. cit., 460) and Pandev (op. cit., 41) that “the military instructions” of the Staff, prepared by Commander Walter, had 264 paragraphs, while neither version of these instructions, as they were transmitted to the Macedonian League, contains so many articles. D. Walter was a former captain who took part in the Kresna Uprising; he was persecuted by the Austrian authorities and also became an activist in the Macedonian League (V. Diamandiev, Avtobiografija, l. 121, ob. 122).
- ↑ Makedonskata liga ¼, 292-312.
- ↑ Ibid., 292.
- ↑ Ibid., 315-319.
- ↑ Ibid., 320-325.
- ↑ Ibid., 323.
- ↑ Ibid., 326-327.
- ↑ Ibid., 329-331.
- ↑ Ibid., 330-331
- ↑ Ibid., 137.
- ↑ AVP RI, f. Pos-stvo v Konstantinopole, 1880, op. 517/2, d. 2276.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ CGAOR, Moskva, f. 730, op. 1, º 79, l. 1.
- ↑ Ibid., l l. 2-3 s ob. We find a nearly identical version in Makedonskata liga ¼, 356-357. Yet we can also find the same initial text in the Appeal of the ‘Macedonia to the Macedonians’ Society in Constantinople, dated April 15, 1891 (D-r Vladan Gjorgjević, Srbija i Grčka 1891-1893. Prilog za istoriju srpske diplomacije pri kraju XIX veka, Beogr ad, 1923, 95-96). This text is also ascribed to Leonidas Voulgaris, who lived in Athens at the time.
- ↑ AVP RI, f. Polit arhiv, op. 482, 1881, d. 1124, l l. 188-191 s ob.
- ↑ AVP RI, f. Pos-stvo v Konstantinopole, 1880, op. 517/2, d. 2276, l l. 236-237.
- ↑ Ibid., l. 240 s ob.
- ↑ Ibid., l l. 241-242 s ob.
- ↑ Ibid., l l. 243-244 s ob.
- ↑ Ibid., l l. 245-247 s ob.
- ↑ Ibid., l l. 299-301 s ob.
- ↑ Ibid., l l. 321-322.
- ↑ Ibid., l l. 337-343.
- ↑ Ibid., l l. 347-348 s ob.
- ↑ Ibid., l. 367 s ob.
- ↑ Ibid., l. 365 s ob.
- ↑ Makedonecь, I, 1, Russe, 1.HI.1880, 1. Significant information on the establishment and activity of the Macedonian League in Ruse can be found in the Autobiography of its president, Vasil Dijamandiev (from Ohrid), who, among other things, writes: “Up to the beginning of 1883 I was a member of the Ruse Court of Appeal, and in 1880, together with Georgij A. Georgov, we founded a league under my presidency, while Georgov himself was elected its treasurer. The league was composed of five members: one president, one treasurer, one secretary and two councillors. This ‘league’ was founded according to my plan taking the ‘Irish League’ as its basis, which was said to number about 40,000 members at the time. I assumed that in the Principality of Bulgaria there were more than 100,000 Macedonians, who, if they joined it as sworn members and supporting members, would make the Macedonian League larger than the Irish League and present a great fear for the Turks. In addition, our five-member league which was based in Ruse was considered authorized to act within the Principality of Bulgaria with unlimited rights — such as it would deem it necessary to use as an independent body of the existing main league in Macedonia under the name ‘Pirin Planina’ and under the leadership of seventeen commanders. In the relations with its members, the Ruse League used papers headed with the slogan ‘Pirin Planina Macedonian League under the leadership of seventeen commanders’. Above the slogan there was a Macedonian lion crowned with a triple crown, treading with two feet on the Turkish crescent and all military attributes, in its right paw it holds a sword and roars, and below it is written: ‘Freedom or Death’. On such paper we submitted a request to the Ambassadorial Conference in Constantinople through Mr Hitrovo, and later also to the Berlin International Conference dealing with the Greek-Thessalian question. These two memoranda contained sharp warnings that in the case that the conferences paid no attention to them, the League had the right to start an uprising of as yet unseen horror and terror. Instead of a constitution, the league had Instructions consisting of a few articles in the following spirit: ‘Every Macedonian living in the Principality of Bulgaria should consider himself a sworn member and supporting member and should unconditionally obey the Ruse league. For all those Macedonians who dare reject this, the least punishment is death. This rule is not imposed upon the Moesian and Thracian Bulgarians, but they too are bound to help no less than the Macedonians in the liberation of Macedonia.” [Avtobiografija, Del I, Bьlgarski istoričeski arhiv pri Narodnata biblioteka,,Kiril i Metodij“, Sof ija, f. 577 (Vasi l Diamandiev), a.e. 1, l. 120, ob. 121]. In the newspaper Bьlgarinь (Ioe, 320, Ruse, 21.HII.1880, 2), Vasil Dijamandiev and Georgij A. Georgov published a longer letter entitled ‘Our Diplomats’ in which they wrote that “our diplomats have started furiously cursing and intimidating the members of the Macedonian League, and have sent them a circular imparting to everyone that if they participate in the Macedonian League, they will be dismissed from service”. At the same time Dijamandiev and Georgov published letters by the editor of the Ruse newspaper Makedonecь, Nikola Živkov, and his anti-Macedonian activity and defended the policy and goals of the League. The French newspaper in Constantinople, Phare du Bosphore, published interesting information, printing the text of the Salonika correspondent of Correspondance politiljue, where he wrote that on August 6, 1880, one of the League’s detachments, on whose banner was written ‘Freedom or Death’, was seen on Pirin Planina, and that eight battalions of Turkish troops were immediately sent after it (Zornica, oe, 34, Carigradь, 19.oe III.1880, 134). On July 29, 1880, a ‘new manifesto’ with the signatures of eight commanders and the president of the League, Dijamandiev, was sent to the newspaper Bьlgarinь, announcing insurgent actions in Macedonia (Zorni ca, oe, 35, 26.oe III.1880, 140).
- ↑ Makedonecь, I, 17, 5.I.1881, 67-68. The figure of Georgij A. Georgov (Georgiev) still remains insufficiently studied, even though he was one of the more important national activists towards the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. He was a teacher and the principal of the Agricultural School in Ruse, but later we also find him close to various societies of the Macedonians in Sofia and around the Young Macedonian Society, while in April 1910 he appears as the treasurer of the Autonomous Macedonia Committee in Sofia (Makedonija, XXII, 1, Sofija, 28.Ioe.1910, 1). It is highly important that we find his name among the signatories to the Memorandum of the Macedonians to the Governments and the Public Opinion of the Balkan States of June 7, 1913, in Makedonskíj golosь (Makedonski gl as), I, 1, S.-P et er bur gь, 9.oe I.1913, 17-20, as the author of significant articles in the Slavophile mouthpiece Slavjanskíja izvestíja (º 12, 3.II.1913, 175-177 and º 16, 3.III.1913, 257-260), and as one of the three representatives of the Macedonians (together with Dimitrija Čupovski and Nace Dimov) in St Petersburg, presented in the documentary film Slavic Album as “a Macedonian, a former Bulgarian member of parliament” [D-r Blaže Ristovski, Dimitrija Čupovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o naučno-literaturno drugarstvo vo Petrograd, II, Skopje, 1978, 72-78].
- ↑ Svoboda, III, 280, Sofija, 1.oe II.1889, 3.
- ↑ I.G. Senkevič, ,,Novìe dokumentì ob osvoboditel Ånojbor Åbe v Zapadnoj Makedonii i Kosove v konce 70-h — načal e 80-h godov XIX v.“ in: Slavjanskoe istočni kovedeni e. Sbornik statej i materialov, Moskva, 1965, 274-284.
- ↑ D-r Kliment ambazovski, Kulturno-opštestvenite vrski na Makedoncite so Srbija vo tekot na XIX vek, Skopje, 1960, 162-171; D-r LJubiša Doklestić, op. cit., 304-308.
- ↑ Particularly strong revolutionary actions were taken in the turbulent year of 1885, after the ‘unification’ of East Rumelia with Bulgaria and following the Serbo-Bulgarian War. Organizers and whole armed detachments were sent to Macedonia in an organized way, mainly across the Bulgarian border, but once again the Macedonian liberation struggle was offered no support from any side (AVP RI, f. Konsulьstvo v Salonikah, op. 565, 1885, d. 512, l l. 30-31, s ob, 53, 55, 57-60 s ob, 63-65 s ob, 67-69 s ob, 78-79 s ob, etc.).
- ↑ D-r Blaže Ristovski, Gjorgija M. Pulevski i negovite kniški,,Samovila Makedonska“ I,,Makedonska pesnarka“, Biblioteka na spisanieto Makedonski folklor, 1, Skopje, 1973.
- ↑ G. M. Pulevski, Slavjansko-naseleniski -makedonska slognica rečovska za i spravuvanje pravoslovki -jazičesko-pisanie, III kni ga. Osnovana na III.to odelenie učilnai štk, Pьrvi delь, Sofija, 1880; Gjorgija M. Pulevski, Odbrani stranici. Izbor, redakcija, predgovor i zabeleški D-r Blaže Ristovski, Skopje, 1974, 157-181.
- ↑ Gjorgija M. Pulevski, op. cit., 213-257.
- ↑ Rečnikь otь četiri jezika Skrojena i napisana otь Gjorgija M. Pulevski, arhitekta u Galičnik okružije dibransko 1872. godine, I-va čast, Beogr ad, 1873; Rečnik ot tri jezika s. makedonski, arbanski i turski, knjiga II. Napisao Gjorgje M. Puljevski, mijak galjički, u Beogradu, 1875; Gjorgija M. Pulevski, op. cit., 33-153.
- ↑ D-r Blaže Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i makedonskata nacija, I, 355-362.
- ↑ Upravda [D. Čupovski ], ,,Kemьbìl a Bolgaríja dlja Makedoníi, Makedonskíj golosь (Makedonski gl as), I, 5, 5.IH.1913, 77
- ↑ D-r Blaže Ristovski, Krste P. Misirkov (1874-1926). Prilog kon proučuvanjeto na razvitokot na makedonskata nacionalna misla, Skopje, 1966, 721-722; D-r Blaže Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i makedonskata nacija, I, 298-301; A. Keckar ovь, ,,Predteči na Revolucionnata organizacija vь Ohridsko“, Ilustracija Ilindena, oe II, 1, Sofija, 1934, 10-13; D-r Stojan Risteski, Dve makedonski sudbini Argiri Toma Marinče, Ohrid, 1988, 36-56.
- ↑ D-r Boro Mokrov, Zbor, pečat, vreme. Zbornik trudovi od istorijata na makedonskiot pečat, Skopje, 1987, 87-95.
- ↑ The first known teachers’ meeting in Macedonia was held in Prilep as early as August 3, 1871 (Pravo, oe I, 29, Carigradь, 14.IH.1871; Makedoníja, oe, 37, 14.IH.1871; Novi ni, Ioe, 36, Car i gr adь, 28.I.1894, 3; Ioe, 37, 14.IH.1871; Novi ni, Ioe, 36, Carigradь, 28.I.1894, 3; Ioe, 37, 1.II.1894, 3; Ioe, 54, 1.Ioe.1894, 1; Ioe, 81, 8.oe II.1894, 2; Ioe, 92, 19.oe III.1894, 1; N.G. Eničerevь, Spomeni i beležki, 135-139; I v.B. Šumkovь, op. cit., 357-364; D-r Boro Mokrov, op. cit., 78-84).
- ↑ D-r Slavko Dimevski, Mitropolit skopski Teodosij — život i dejnost (1846-1926), Skopje, 1965; D-r Blaže Ristovski, Krste P. Misirkov (1874-1926) ¼, 120-124.
- ↑ D-r Blaže Ristovski, op. cit., 46-63; D-r Kliment Xambazovski, Kulturno-opštestvenite vrski na Makedoncite so Srbija ¼, 249; D-r LJubiša Doklestić, op. cit., 347-370; Trajko Stamatoski, ,,Makedonski bukvari vo osumdesettite godini na devet naesettiot vek“, Literaturen zbor, XXX, 3, Skopje, 1983, 59-69.
- ↑ D-r Blaže Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i makedonskata nacija, I, 469-590.
- ↑ Sьedinenie, I, 35, Plovdivь, 1883; Konstantin Pandev, Nacionalno-osvoboditelnoto dviženie v Makedonija i Odrinsko 1878-1903, Sofija, 1979, 42.
- ↑ L. Kasьrovь, Enciklopedičeski rečnikь, I, Plovdivь, 1899, 389-390, according to Konstantin Pandev, op. cit., 42-43.
- ↑ Tьrnovska konstitucija, I, 11, Sofija, 8.II.1884, 4.
- ↑ Dojno Dojnov, Komitetite “Edinstvo“. Roljata i prinosьt im za Sьedinenieto 1885, Sofija, 1985, 296.
- ↑ Konstantin Pandev, op. cit., 47-49; Glasь Makedonski, II, 49, Sofija, 19.HI.1895, 4.
- ↑ †Kiril Patriarh Bьlgarski, Bьlgarskata ekzarhija v Odrinsko i Makedonija sled Osvoboditelnata vojna (1877-1878), I, 2, Sofija, 1970, 521; Dojno Dojnov, op. cit., 296
- ↑ Makedonija, I, 25, Sofija, 2.oe I.1889, 98-99.
- ↑ Glasь Makedonski, II, 49, 19.HI.1895, 4.
- ↑ Makedonija, I, 45 and 46, 5.H.1889, 180; II, 1, 5.HI.1889; Glasь Makedonski, II, 5, 23.HII.1894, 1; II, 50, 26.HI.1895, 4.
- ↑ Makedonija, II, 5, 24.HI.1889, 3-4; Glasь Makedonski, II, 5, 23.HII.1894, 1; II, 51, 3.HII.1895, 3; Makedonija, I, 1, Russe, 20.I.1902, 3; Makedonija, XXIII, 9(497), Sofija, 6.HI.1910, 4; Bjuletinь, º 8, Sofija, 1919, 3
- ↑ Glasь Makedonski, II, 5, 23.HII.1894, 2; II, 51, 3.HII.1895, 6; Makedono-Odrinski Pregledь, II, 30, Sofija, 11.III.1907, 467-468; Bjuletinь, 8, 1919, 3; Iljustraci a Ilinden, I, 1, Sofija, 1927, 7-8.
- ↑ D-r Blaže Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i makedonskata nacija, I, 469-602.
- ↑ Istorija na makedonskiot narod, II, Skopje, 1969, 157-165; D-r Dimitar Dimeski, Makedonskoto nacionalnoosloboditelno dviženje vo Bitolskiot vilaet (1893-1903), Skopje, 1981, 137-147.
- ↑ D-r Dančo Zografski, Jugoslovenskite socijalist i za makedonskoto prašawe, Skopje, 1962, 7-60; D-r Orde Ivanoski, Balkanskite socijalisti i makedonskoto prašawe od 90-tite godini na XIX vek do sozdavanjeto na Tretata internacionala, Skopje, 1970, 66-70; Lazar Mojsov, Pogledi vo minatoto blisko i dalečno, Skopje, 1977, 99-103.
- ↑ D-r Blaže Ristovski, Krste P. Misirkov (1874-1926) ¼, 126-136; D-r Blaže Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i makedonskata nacija, II, 9-23.
- ↑ L’Autonomie, I, 4, Londres, 1.VII.1902, 2.
- ↑ Albano-Makedonia, I, 2, [Bucureshti,] 25/6.I.1894, 1-2; L’Autonomie, I, 4, Londres, 1.III.1902, 1-3; Glasь Makedonski, I, 10, 30.I.1894, 4; Æ go-Zapadna Bьlgarija, I, 22, Sofija, 7.II.1894, III-Ioe
- ↑ Æ go-Zapadna Bьlgarija, I, 24, 20.II.1894, III.
- ↑ Glasь Makedonski, I, 24, 8.oe.1894, 4; I, 25, 5.oe.1894, 1.
- ↑ Sr. p. Petrovь, ,,Makedonskoto delo predi i prezь 1895 g. vь Bьlgarija“, I ljustracija IlindenÅ, oe I, 7(57), Sofija, 1934, 7-9.
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- ↑ D-r Blaže Ristovski, ,,Petar Daniilovič Draganov (1857-1928)“, Makedonski folklor, II, 3-4, Skopje, 1969, 495-528; D-r Blaže Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i makedonskata nacija, I, 408-466; D-r Blaže Ristovski, Makedonskiot folklor i nacionalnata svest, II, Skopje, 1987, 73-89; Gane Todorovski, ,,Stranici za edno makedonofilstvo“, Godišen zbornik na Filozofskiot fakultet na Univerzitetot vo Skopje, 22, Skopje, 1970, 167-190.
- ↑ P. Draganovь, Makedonsko-Slavjanskíj Sbornikь, I, S.-Peterburgь, 1894.
- ↑ Karl Hron, Narodnosta na Makedonskite Sloveni. Redakcija i komentari : D-r Hristo Andonov-Poljanski, Skopje, 1966.
- ↑ R. Bulatova, ,,Leongard Gotthil Åf Mazing (1845-1936)“, Tartu ulikoli ajaloo küsimusi, I (Trüajaloo komisjoni matrjalid), Tartu, 1975, 142-158; R.V. Bulatova, ,,Pervìj issledovatel jazìka makedonskih slavjan L.G. Mazing (1845-1936)“, Makedonski jazi k, XXXII-XXXIII, Skopje, 1982, 63-73; D-r Blaže Ristovski, ,,Pottik za razvojot na makedonistikata“, Nova Makedonija, Hª, 13392, Skopje, 5.oe.1984, 5
- ↑ D-r Blaže Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i makedonskata nacija, II, 395-406.
- ↑ Gane Todorovski, Prethodnicite na Misirkov, Skopje, 1968, 166; Gane Todorovski, Traktati za sonceljubivite (Esei i zapi si na makedonski temi), Skopje, 1974, 164; D-r Blaže Ristovski, Dimitrija Čupovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskot o naučno-literaturno drugarstvo vo Petrograd, II, Skopje, 1978, 272; D-r Blaže Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i makedonskata nacija, I, 474 and 530-531.
- ↑ I.S.östrebovь, Obìčai i pesni tureckihь serbovь vь Prizrene, I peke, Morave i Dibre, S.-Peterburgь, 1886 (2nd edition 1889).
- ↑ Nekolko kratki letopisni beležki po sьstojanieto na zapadnite Makedonci za pьrvata četirideset i peta godišna epoha na nastojaëi vekь. Izvlekьlь, naredilь i prevelь otь grьcki učenika Ezerski, Sofija, 1890.
- ↑ D-r Blaže Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i makedonskata nacija, I, 490-506.
- ↑ Aleksandar Aleksiev, Osnovopoložnici na makedonskata dramska literatura, II dopolneto izdanie, Skopje, 1976, 29-38.
- ↑ Sbornikь ot ьbьlgarski narodni umotvorenija, I-IX. Sьbralь i izdava K.A. Šapkarevь, Sofija, 1891-1894.
- ↑ Aleksandar Matkovski, ,,Kniževnata i prosvet na dejnost na učitelot Vasil Ikonomov od Lazaropole“, Prosvetno delo, X, 1-2, Skopje, 1954, 61-74; Gligor Todorovski, ,,Nekoi novi materijali od životot na učitelot Vasil Ikonomov od Lazaropole“, Prosvetno delo, Hoe, 5-6, 1959, 278-285; Gligor Todorovski, Malorekanskiot predel. Opštestveno-ekonomski i prosvetni priliki vo periodot od 80-te godi ni na XIX vek do krajot na Prvata svetska vojna, Skopje, 1970, 162, etc.; D-r Blaže Ristovski, Vasil Ikonomov (1848-1934). Prilog kon proučuvanjeto na makedonskiot kulturno-nacionalen razvitok, I NI, Skopje, 1985; Vasil Ikonomov, Staronarodni pesni i običai od Zapadna Makedonija. Redakcija d-r Kiril Penušliski, d- Blaže Ristovski, d-r Blaže Petrovski, I F, Skopje, 1988.
- ↑ Naumь K. Tahovь, Sbornikь otь Makedonski bьlgarski narodni pesni, Sofija, 1895.
- ↑ Marko K. Cepenkov, Makedonski narodni umotvorbi vo deset knigi. Redakcija: Kiril Penušliski, Blaže Ristovski, Tome Sazdov, I F, Skopje, 1972 (2nd revised edition 1980).
- ↑ AAN SSSR, Leningrad, f. 284, op. 3, º 81.
- ↑ D-r Blaže Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i makedonskata nacija, II, 214-234; D-r Blaže Ristovski, Makedonski letopis. Raskopki na literaturni nacionalni temi. Prilozi za razvitokot na makedonskata kulturno-nacionalna misla, I, Makedonska kni ga, Skopje, 1993, 153-163.
- ↑ Cočo V. Biljarski, ,,Protokolite na Vьrhovnija makedono-odrinski komitet meždu II i III kongres (1900-1901)“, Izvestija na dьržavnite arhivi, 51, Sofija, 1986, 120.
- ↑ Ibid., 132.
- ↑ Ilinden, I, 25, Sofija, 27.II.1908, 1.
- ↑ Cočo V. Biljarski, op. cit., 127.
- ↑ Ibid., 149.
- ↑ D-r Blaže Ristovski, Krste P. Misirkov (1874-1926), 200-223; D-r Blaže Ristovski, Dimitrija Čupovski (1878-1940) i Makedonskoto naučno-literaturno drugarstvo vo Petrograd, I, 110-130.
- ↑ LJuben Lape, ,,Dokumenti za formiranjeto na Slavjano-makedonskoto naučno-literaturno drugarstvo i ne